The Jabbok River

יַבֹּק · “Yabbok” on the map

Where is the Jabbok River? Zarqa River, in Jordan. I mark it certain.

Jacob sent his family across the ford of the Yabbok by night and stayed behind alone. He wrestled until dawn and walked away limping, with a new name, Israel.

By Aaron Shaffier, licensed Israel tour guide and mapmaker · About the mapmaker

Site today
Zarqa River, in Jordan
How sure
Certain The name, the sources and the finds all agree.
Other names
Jabbok, Zarqa River, Nahr az-Zarqa
Location
32.2008° N, 35.9026° E (Google Maps)
The Jabbok River on the hand-drawn Map of Biblical Israel
Yabbok on our hand-drawn Map of Biblical Israel. Get the full map as a print →

How we know where it was

The Bible uses the Yabbok as a fixed border. Sihon's kingdom ran from the Arnon to the Yabbok. The river also bounded the Ammonites, whose capital Rabbah, today Amman, sits at its source. Generations later the king of Ammon was still demanding the land "from the Arnon to the Yabbok."

The Zarqa is the only large year-round river on the east bank between the Yarmuk and the Arnon. Its upper course curves around the Ammonite heartland, just as Moses describes. Then it cuts west through the hills of Gilead to meet the Jordan near Adam. Eusebius knew it by the same name, and the identification has never been seriously questioned.

Visiting today

In Jordan. The roads between Jerash and Amman look down into the valley, and the King Talal Dam holds a reservoir on its course.

Read it in the Bible

Verse numbers follow the Hebrew Bible. In a handful of chapters English Bibles count one verse off.

See Yabbok on the interactive map →

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